End the war, finish off the militias

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in an effort to restore a cease-fire with Israel…

Abu Hamza, of Islamic Jihad’s military wing, said a truce should be conditioned on Israel’s ending its attacks on militant groups, extending the cease-fire to the West Bank, and retracting threats to go after militant leaders…

A tahdiyeh [‘lull’] had been in place in the Gaza Strip, but while Hamas largely adhered to it for about six months, other, smaller organizations did not, and Hamas made no move to enforce it. Israel therefore refused to extend it to the West Bank, arguing that only the IDF would or could curtail extremist Palestinian groups operating there. — Ha’aretz

The previous ‘truce’ was less than worthless, since there was always a faction available to attack Israel with rockets or suicide bombers while other factions (and Israel) observed it.

The Palestinian pattern seems to be to create as much chaos as possible, and then call for a truce when countermeasures start to become effective.

A truce isn’t needed. The Palestinian militias started a war, and Israel should end the war by finishing off the militias. Peace will come only when the Palestinians have a leadership that understands that Israel can’t be defeated militarily.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 12:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.